The Town of Odyssey

Since I liked the first movie a lot when I finally saw it I'm going to go see this when it gets around to my theater.

Looks like fun! I'm definitely not going to see it in theatres but I'd happily watch it once it's on Netflix or wherever it ends up. Who can resist Puss in Boots?

There has been so much praise being heaped on this movie all over the internet that I had high expectations by the time I was finally able to go see it, which wasn't until today. Everyone was saying the same thing: 'Don't be fooled by thinking it's just a silly kids movie, go and see this it is genuinely one of the best movies of the year!' I wasn't sure if they were all being serious at first, because it's popular to meme on Shrek related things, but the longer it kept happening I thought there must be something to it.

And there is! It is indeed really good!

You can get this from the trailers so it's not a spoiler to say the message of the movie is learning to appreciate what you have in your life and neither take things for granted nor be so focused on wondering or wishing how things could be different that you don't realize that might not actually be better. How that message is conveyed is extremely well done, and the ways - and with which characters - they do it is very smart and really moving.

Some specific thoughts:

There was a weird frame rate change during the action scenes. I don't think it was a problem with my theater's projector, the clips are really short in the trailers but you can kind of see it happening there too so I guess it was an intentional stylistic choice. I didn't care for it, but it didn't ruin the viewing experience.

There were so many fairy tale references throughout the movie, and they were all great! It actually went beyond just fairy tales, including things like Mary Poppins and Alice in Wonderland. Really fun, and they were so constant that I know I didn't even catch them all.

The forest changing depending on who held the map because the path through it was based on their experiences was a very neat concept and used to good effect.

I thought the wolf was a cool character from his first scene, before ever thinking there was more to him than what was initially presented. When the bigger reveal eventually came that just made it even better.

Wow, you've made me more interested in seeing it, bookworm! That's a pretty good review. I'm curious about the frame thing you mentioned. I'll pay attention for it whenever I see the movie.

Yeah I think they were trying to emulate Into the SpiderVerse with the frame-rate change in action scenes. It was odd but I think it worked.

But yeah it was a pretty fun movie.